| Revision as of 21:14, 29 May 2007 edit65.196.219.162 (talk) Cat: Fictional artificial intelligences← Previous edit | Latest revision as of 14:04, 25 January 2010 edit undoZxcvbnm (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Page movers, Pending changes reviewers61,820 editsm ←Redirected page to The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress | ||
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| In ]'s novel ''] (])'', the character '''Mycroft Holmes''' is a ] ] system entrusted with running the life-support systems, communications, payroll and many other things, in a ] underground in the ] or "Luna". Mycroft eventually sides with characters inciting a revolution to free Luna, and is instrumental in their victory against the Lunar Authority on Earth. | |||
| The name 'Mycroft Holmes' is given to the computer by one of the characters, from the HOLMES acronym of his official name ''High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV, Mod. L''. In fact it is Heinlein's tribute to ]'s fictional ], brother of the famous ]. | |||
| {{spoiler}} | |||
| Mycroft most often goes under the name "Mike", but also adopts a female persona on occasion called "Michelle", and appears in public as "Adam Selene", the reclusive leader of the revolutionary movement. Adam Selene is eventually "killed" in the Battle in the Corridors when it becomes inconvenient for Mike to continue to pose as Adam Selene. He also goes under many other names and personalities, pretending to be his own secretary and several of the main characters, among others. | |||
| In the novel, Heinlein posits advanced ] software for the consciousness of the character of Mike. Mike's awakening is a fictional example of the '']'' of ]. Mike was originally installed to control the ] catapult mechanism and control the flight of pilot-less freighters; he was vastly under-utilised in this role however and so the Luna Authority gave him more and more tasks to do, and more and more resources (extra memory, processing units, ] etc) until one day he became so complex he simply "woke up". | |||
| Heinlein also proposed the use of advanced real-time ] and ] techniques for portraying Adam Selene over video phones, techniques that were far in advance of the primitive line drawing CG capabilities of the time (mid 1960s). | |||
| ==Mycroft Holmes' death, rescue and resurrection== | |||
| ''The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress'' ended with the bombing of Mike's physical hardware by Earth, a trauma so great that the sentience that was Mike retreated into a coma from which he could not be awakened, despite the best efforts of his friend and engineer ]. | |||
| The central plot device of Heinlein's '']'' is the recruitment of ] to rescue the software and hardware that went into making Mycroft Holmes sentient. The plan to wake Mike from his coma is simply to "throw him into bed" with the sentient computer ], a plan that succeeds, as a revived Mycroft Holmes appears briefly in the novel '']''. | |||
| It is revealed in ''The Cat Who Walks Through Walls'' that most histories in the parallel universes of ] record that Adam Selene was truly a creature of flesh and blood. | |||
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Latest revision as of 14:04, 25 January 2010
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